“And you’re hurt...” He looked her up and down again.
“Not as badly as I could have been,” she said.
“But still...how are you taking care of a baby with that?” He nodded at her wrist. “Your fingers are sausages—that can’t feel good.”
It actually hurt tremendously whenever she had to use any part of her wrist, hand or fingers to do anything with Immy. But she didn’t need or want his sympathy, so all she said was, “I manage.”
“Here?” he asked, with another glance around that took in the motel and the rest of the truck stop. “On your own?”
He was stating the obvious, so she didn’t respond to it.
“Seth said you aren’t married, your roommate told him you aren’t involved with anyone and don’t have any family to come up here to lend a hand—”
“My parents died seven years ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. And I guess the school year just started in Northbridge, so your roommate has to be there and can’t come, either—”
“I teach kindergarten. Darla teaches fifth grade. They got a sub for me, but yes, classes started last Thursday and Darla can’t be gone, too.”
“So here I am,” he concluded. “And I want to help.”
He was not going to be her knight in shining armor, if that’s what he thought.
“I don’t know how you could,” she said flatly.
“For starters, this is no place for you and a baby to be staying, let alone recuperating. I have a house—a big house—that’s more comfortable, not to mention much quieter than this.” He nodded toward the sounds emanating from the bustling travel center. “You can have your own room with a private bathroom, and there’s another room that the baby can go into. I don’t know squat about taking care of a baby—”
“Join the club,” Kyla said under her breath.
“—but I’m more able-bodied than you are right now, so I can lend a hand with...what’s the baby’s name? I know you said it, but—”
“Immogene—but her mom and dad call...called...her Immy.” Kyla fought a fresh wave of grief at the thought that that was past tense.
“I can lend a hand with Immy,” Beau went on, “and you can rest and let me help you get back on your feet. Camden Superstores can provide both of you with everything you need to start over—”
“Darla is just waiting for me to give her an address and she’s sending my own things to replace what I lost,” Kyla informed.
“Still, I’m sure there are a few things you could use to tide you over, and I’ll get the baby outfitted with whatever it is babies need. Then, if you’re open to it, when you’re better, I can also maybe give you some help with the business side of things, overseeing these truck stops. My own family was left in a situation not too different than this—Camden Incorporated had to be run for a while by people other than Camdens after H.J. died and before the rest of us were old enough to take it on. If you need help with that—maybe you don’t...”
A weak, wry, overwhelmed laugh shot out of Kyla and from her muddled emotions came a blurted confession. “I know what to do with five-year-olds, not with babies. I don’t know anything about being a single parent. And when it comes to business...I was raised by people who rarely had two dimes to rub together, and if they did, they squandered them. I definitely don’t know the first thing about running any business. And now I have what I’m told is a huge one on my hands. I think Immy might already hate me, and if I’m as bad with finances as my parents were, I could ruin everything Rachel and Eddie left her before she’s old enough to read, much less take over for herself—”
“So you do need help.”
“I don’t know what I need,” Kyla lamented, fighting the breakdown that she felt on the verge of. But whatever she needed, it couldn’t be Beau Camden.
And yet Beau Camden was the only one standing there, offering.
Damn it all, anyway...
Kyla blinked back tears that threatened again, though she couldn’t help slumping slightly against the SUV’s grille.
“We’ll just take it one step at a time,” Beau said in a consoling and less stilted voice. “And I’ll be there with you the whole way.”
It was what he should have said to her fourteen years ago.
And hearing it, Kyla felt the anger and hurt and confusion she’d felt then, surprised that after all this time and even under the current circumstances the feelings could be as strong as they were.
“Please,” he said into her negative thoughts, once more as if he could read them. “Let me do this for you now and we’ll sort through the past later.”
It went against everything in Kyla to accept help from anyone. Ever.
And if she were on her own there was no way she would accept anything from him.
But she had Immy.
And she really was alone in Denver.
Eddie’s secretary had been kind, but she was new to the job, barely nineteen, and she already had her hands full dealing with the chaos at the office.
One of the volunteers at the hospital was also a volunteer with the Red Cross and had come to see her. But once the volunteer found out there were resources available to her and Immy through the truck stops Immy now owned, that was the last of the volunteer or the Red Cross.
Eddie’s estate attorney had come to the hospital to talk to her and he’d let her know that even though Eddie and Rachel’s wills needed to go through probate, he could likely persuade a judge to release funds from the estate for the care and well-being of Immy, as well as for Kyla as Immy’s guardian. To tide them over until he accomplished that, he’d advanced her three hundred dollars from his own pocket.
He’d also contacted the truck stop and arranged for their motel room, and for the convenience store and the diner to run tabs for whatever food she ordered and whatever she could use out of the convenience store.
But from there he’d said only that he’d be in touch.
The diner food was salty, greasy and very heavy, but more problematically, the one choice of baby formula from the convenience store wasn’t the organic stuff Immy was used to. Kyla thought it was possible that the newborn didn’t like it and so was refusing to eat. That potentially had contributed to the problems this evening and could ultimately lead to Immy feeling sick or having digestive ailments.
Kyla’s driver’s license and credit cards were lost in the fire, so she couldn’t rent or drive a car to go outside the truck stop, and she had no idea if taxis were equipped with child car seats to allow her to attempt to get anywhere else.
Plus she didn’t even know where she was or where to go from here to try to find Immy the formula Rachel had used.
And besides all of that, Kyla was well aware that she was not only inexperienced and inept with Immy, she also wasn’t physically up to caring for the baby altogether on her own. She’d overestimated the strength of her sprained wrist the first time she’d had to lift Immy and nearly dropped her. And even though she was more careful now, using her wrist and hand was still painful and they were very weak.
So while Kyla was inclined to hold her chin high and refuse even an iota of help from Beau, for Immy’s sake she didn’t think she could look a gift horse in the mouth.
Even if that gift horse was the same person who had left her